Mouth hygienic composition for the treatment of halitosis

Abstract

A mouth hygienic composition effective in treating halitosis. The composition comprises a chelate comprising a metal ion, preferably a zinc ion, and an amino acid, preferably glycine.

Description

This invention relates to a mouth hygienic composition, which is useful in preventing or reducing bad breath, in particular for the treatment of halitosis, in the prevention of plaque formation, gingivitis and calculus and thus suitably facilitate the development of a healthy mouth hygiene. It also relates to the use of a particular metal chelate in the composition and a method for using the composition.It is widely accepted that for many people the affliction of halitosis (bad breath) may constitute a serious problem, particularly in social encounters. The breath malodour may be very severe and it may occur e.g. occasionally, regularly, or chronically and at specific times of the day or month. For the purposes of this application, the terms "bad breath", "halitosis" and "breath malodour" all mean an unpleasant breath odour that is objectionable to others.Public awareness and concern for this phenomenon are evidenced e.g. by the support of an estimated $850 million mouth wash indust...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

Consequently, the metal amino acid chelate used in the present invention is significantly different from the compounds described in the prior art in terms of both molecular weight and solubility. This difference may well account for the fact that the chelate according to the present invention is particularly useful in treating, preventing and / or eliminating halitosis while at the same time having pleasant organoleptic qualities and being essentially tastefree in the absence of a flavouring agent.

Metals such as e.g. Ag, Ca, Cu, Fe, Mg, Mn, Zn, Mo, Co, Se, Sn and V are suitably used in the preparation of chelates of metal ions with amino acids. Zn is a particularly useful metal in the context of the present invention, as the zinc ion, Zn.sup.2+, of the chelate is releasable under controllable conditions in the oral cavity and thus readily available for reacting with volatile sulphur compounds (VSC) and other malodourants.

Suitable amino acids of the present invention also comprise basic amino acids, acidic amino acids, amino acids with aliphatic side chains, amino acids with aromatic side chains, monoamino-monocarboxylic amino acids, hydroxy-monoamino-monocarboxylic amino acids, monoamino-dicarboxylic amino acids, amidocarboxylic amino acids and diamino-monocarboxylic amino acids. In general, the reactability of both the carboxy group and the amino group of an amino acid with a metal ion moiety facilitates the formation of the chelated structure. This readily explains why almost any biologically acceptable amino acid will most likely be able to facilitate the formation of the chelated structures present in the compositions according to the present invention.

Problems solved by technology

However, zinc chloride in aqueous solution tends to form oxychloride and zinc hydroxides of low solubility, which results in a two-phase, cloudy solution.

However, this method is not acceptable since the resultant oral care product exhibits severe astringency and an undesirable sour taste.

However, zinc acetate and zinc citrate also have a high degree of astringency and an undesirable metallic taste.

Such a simple ionic and hydrogen bonding of minerals to amino acids does not produce a stable product.

As a consequence, their solubilities are low in water.

Additional amino acids must consequently be bonded to other amino acids, which results in the product no longer being a chelate, as it is no longer a coordination compound of a mineral to an amino acid.

However, by reacting with the sulphur-containing amino acids in the oral cavity, the metal ion moiety of the chelate significantly reduces the microbial growth potential which in turn is likely to lead to a reduced plaque formation.

It should also be noted that the cysteine challenge method is a very harsh method since it initially generates VSC in an amount of around 1000 ppb.

This level corresponds to a very severe bad breath.

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